Pesto Portobello Mushroom Pizza
Growing up, every Thursday night was pizza night in our house. This was our favorite dinner and also one night that we knew that if we invited our friends over for dinner, they would love it—after all, what kid doesn’t like pizza, no matter how healthy it’s prepared?! Our mom, who cooked all of our meals from scratch would start making her pizza dough mid-afternoon, when she’d put it in the oven and wait for the dough to rise. After that, she’d work up a sweat kneading it for what seemed like hours. When she could round us up to help, this was one of our favorite parts—and we’d love using the rolling pin after kneading it to make the round pizza pie. She used whole wheat flour in her dough and we remember our dad requesting she use only half whole wheat flour because it made the dough too tough. 😉 We loved mom’s pizza and appreciated all the effort she put into it, but it would have saved her so many hours had she had known our delicious Pizzeria at Home secret! 🙂
We didn’t have to become registered dietitians to know how much everyone seems to love pizza—or to know how much so many weight-loss hopefuls feel guilty after eating it. Guilty is the last thing we want for anyone to feel—especially after eating a food that can be delicious and guilt-free! After all, that’s why we created waist-line friendly pizza options like our Portobello Pizza, Easy Veggie Pita Pizza and our Polenta Pizza just to name a few.
And check out this way to make a your favorite food! By using a Portobello mushroom instead of carb-heavy dough, this pizza cuts back on carbs without cutting back on taste! (Pssst…if you remember our Balsamic Egg White Capped Portobello Burger , you’ll see another time the delish Portobello saved mega calories!)
Pesto Portobello Mushroom Pizza
Makes 2 Servings
Ingredients:
Pesto:
½ cup tomato paste
¼ cup fresh basil, lightly packed
Garlic – ½ clove, peeled
Pizza Mixture:
2 portobello mushrooms, thoroughly washed and patted dry
½ cup tomato, diced
1/8 cup yellow onion, diced
½ cup green pepper, cut into slices
half of a medium zucchini (about 3 inches), diced
½ cup low-fat mozzarella cheese
Instructions:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Cut out the stem and ribs from the mushroom caps. Spray the mushroom caps and baking sheet lightly with cooking spray.
- Finely chop the fresh basil.
- Mix together the tomato paste, basil, and garlic. Add mixture to the bottom of the inside of each mushroom cap.
- In a bowl, mix together the tomato, onion, green pepper and zucchini. Fill each mushroom cup with the mixture.
- Top each pizza with ¼ cup of mozzarella cheese.
- Bake in the oven for about 15 minutes until cheese has melted and looks ooey gooey and delicious! Enjoy!
Nutrition Information
Serving size: 1 pizza Calories: 158 Fat: 2 Carbohydrates: 18 Sugar: 9 Sodium: 284 Fiber: 5 Protein: 12 Cholesterol: 15
- ½ cup tomato paste
- ¼ cup fresh basil, chopped
- Garlic – ½ clove, peeled
- 2 portobello mushrooms, thoroughly washed and patted dry
- ½ cup tomato, diced
- ⅛ cup yellow onion, diced
- ½ cup green pepper, cut into slices
- half of a medium zucchini (about 3 inches), diced
- ½ cup low-fat mozzarella cheese
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Cut out the stem and ribs from the mushroom caps. Spray the mushroom caps and baking sheet lightly with cooking spray.
- Finely chop the fresh basil.
- Mix together the tomato paste, basil, and garlic. Add mixture to the bottom of the inside of each mushroom cap.
- In a bowl, mix together the tomato, onion, green pepper and zucchini. Fill each mushroom cup with the mixture.
- Top each pizza with ¼ cup of mozzarella cheese.
- Bake in the oven for about 15 minutes until cheese has melted and looks ooey gooey and delicious! Enjoy!